4 Hours of Waiting, 3 Minutes of Horse Racing

I can sum up our first full day in Europe with about 4 words:

1) Hot
2) Crowded
3) Exciting
4) McDonald’s

Thanks to my 9:00 pm bedtime, I was all bright and shiny by 5:30 in the morning.  Luckily for Blake, I am nothing but considerate, so I let him sleep until 6:15 am, before waking him up with a thoughtful poke to the cheek.  In the 45 minutes that I was awake, I had googled “best cappuccino in Florence” and had a list of cafes for us to try in the next few days.

Of course, we were some of the only people on the street, but we drank our cappuccino and ate our pastries and started off towards the train station, where we needed to reserve our tickets to Munich for the next day.  There, we met my nemesis, Rude Italian Train Ticketer.  He rudely informed us that there was only one overnight train to Munich, despite our liar of a Eurorail Train Guide.  He had no patience for us, so I, of course, had no patience for him.  Either way, he won, and it looks like we have to head to Munich on a train during a time in which we should be laying down instead of sitting upright.  Hopefully we have improved our sleeping while sitting skills on the trip over here, because from 9:30 PM – 6:30 AM on July 4 we will be on a train in route to Munich.

After all that excitement, we boarded our bus to Siena.  I had big plans of watching the scenery, but ended up napping the entire trip.  Upon arriving in Siena, we immediately headed up the giant hill to get a look at the main cathedral.  Worried (for no reason, it turns out) that we would not have enough time to both tour it AND wait in the heat to see the Palio, we admired it from the outside, and I got this amazing shot of both Blake AND the cathedral.

Look! I got on a knee to take this picture because I am such a good photographer.

After exploring the city for a while and walking approximately 8 miles entirely up hill ( seriously, I feel it today.  Italians should have amazing butts with all that hill walking they do), we bought some pizza for lunch and ate it in the nearest doorway we could find.

Our favorite place to be, out of the sun.

After a while, we decided that we better hurry up and sit out in the sun and wait for the race or we might not get a good spot.  This proved to be a mistake.  First of all, it was one million trillion degrees outside.  Second of all, only the young people (of which I am not) waited in the sun for 4 hours for the race to start.  Everyone else piled in right before, and seemed to be just fine.  However, Blake and I are dumb, so we sat out in 100 degree weather on some cobble stone ground, sweating and waiting for the race to begin.

The water truck, which kept the dirt down and cooled down those of us who were sitting in the sun for hours.

Finally, at around 5:00, there was some activity occurring around the track.  Assuming the race was about to begin, Blake and I got ready picking our favorite mascots (side note:  the race pits the 17 neighborhoods of Siena against one another.  Each neighborhood is absolutely covered with flags displaying their colors and mascots.  These mascots are sub par.  I mean, there is a porcupine, a clam shell, a caterpillar, wood, and a fish, amongst others), the porcupine – me and the duck – Blake.  However, unbeknown to us,  we still had a 2.5 hour procession to sit through.  Thanks to our new friends, Francesco and Lizbeth, who had been sitting next to us the entire time and wanted to work on their English, we learned the meaning of each of the different groups who walked slowly by, throwing flags and wearing velvet.  I won’t bore you with all the facts, but I will show you this picture of a man in a mask with a hand coming out of his hat because it is awesome.

Weird!

Finally, after the longest most boring parade ever known to man, the horses lined up for the race.  And then there was about 10 faults, which caused the audience to yell out in anger.  Finally (seriously, FINALLY), the race began – and man, people were EXCITED!  You can hear my screaming in this video (I actually think it might be someone else, but who know.)

In about 3 minutes, the race was over.  I am pretty sure that Wood won, but there was no real way to tell.  Horses were running without riders, people were shouting obscenities, and men began crying.  And then violence began.  The man next to us began SOBBING with despair that his neighborhood’s horse did not win.  Other men joined him.  Still others began pushing us around, looking to fight someone.  Our new friend Francesco told us in a worried voice that we needed to exit the area quickly (we were right near the track, thanks to our awesome waiting abilities and therefore, a little too close to the action), so Blake and I worriedly started walking quickly to the bus station.  We then entered, what I can only describe as pandemonium.  There was blood on the ground and men running around punching people.  It was intense.  You can see all the blood on the ground and hear my bad-ass-ness in this video -

Needless to say, we made it out safe and passed out on our bus for the hour long trip back to Florence.

Oh yeah, and McDonald’s?  It was way too late, and we were way too tired, so we made the cultured decision to eat a quick dinner of McDonald’s near our hotel room.  It was the best big mac I have ever tasted.

Planes, Trains and Pizza Fables

Waiting for McDonald's to open at 4:30 AM in DFW

Well, after a grand total of 3 hours and 38 minutes of sleep, Blake and I blearily packed up my car (with the assistance of my parents) and headed to the airport.  We arrived before even McDonald’s opened up….that’s insanity!  We stalked McDonald’s for a while until they finally lifted their cage screen, and Blake and I purchased the two most delicious egg mcmuffins ever created (one sans cheese, gross).  Who knows when we are going to have another egg for breakfast?!  It might be an ENTIRE month from now!

Well folks, we are off to Europe.  In theory of course.  At the moment we are on a grand tour of middle sized airports throughout the US (I guess that’s what happens when you use your mileage points for a “free” ticket).  Note to everyone – the Raleigh, NC airport is superb.

Just to let everyone know, we will officially be posting to my site (Sugar and Caffeine) and linking from Blake’s site.  We even brought my mom’s little flip camera, so I am sure there will be some riveting videos for you to enjoy as well.

Wish us luck – we will soon (relative term) be in Zurich, hoping to find a train that will whisk us off to Italy, land of the horse races.  Talk to you then….

Kristi

UPDATE: Ok, so this is Blake. And we are in Florence!

Train to Milan

It took us a grand total of 30 hours to get here, but we made it. The transportation list: 3 planes, 3 trains, multiple escalators (both vertical and horizontal) and our feet. I love the fact that we used miles to get here and back, and definitely think it was worth it, but good lord, that was a long trek.

(It also helped that AA was showing The Tooth Fairy and Bride Wars on the way over. Let me tell you, both are Oscar worthy.)

Loggia Fiorentina

We timed our sleeping just about right and were actually able to get in a semi-useful day here. Disclaimer: It is 9:15 pm and Kristi is asleep next to me, so not a crazy day, but much more than I thought we would after all that travel.

Our place is a GREAT little hotel. It was a) cheaper than a hostel, 2) exceptionally clean, IV) private room, b) great location, and 5) cool staff. (The guy at the desk was about our age and said the phrase “You can not tell me a fable about pizza” to tell us how good a pizza joint down the street is.)

We basically just walked around, got the lay of the land, purchased our train tickets to Siena for Palio tomorrow, and, of course, ate gelato.

I have a feeling there will be many, many more pics like this

Tomorrow promises to be packed full of action at the Palio horse races. The race dates back to the year 1260 and apparently not much has changed. I will leave the details for the next blog post, but to get an idea of what it is, check out the action from last year… awesome.

And, yes, two of the jockeys fell off but according to tradition, their horses can still win the race for them. That one turn is nuts!

Ciao,

Blake

Kristi And Blake’s European Vacation!

As alluded to in this post, Blake and I have been hard at work figuring out new and inventive ways to spend all our money before going deeply into debt to finance Blake’s graduate school and both of us finding ourselves without any steady sort of employment.  We decided to go to Europe.  We definitely have our priorities straight.

After many conversations with one another and several consultations with both naysayers (DAD) and yaysayers (DAVID….BRITTANY…..MIKE), we finally decided to throw the gauntlet and travel to Europe for the month of July.  Now, this isn’t going to be some sort of intercontinental tour of the 5 star hotels specking various European countries.  Or even 3 star hotels.  This is going to be your typical, just out of college (-ish for me, and in the last decade for Blake), tour of the various cheap and (hopefully) bug and hair free hostels and 1 star “pensions” of Europe.  And we are very excited about this (as long as it is hair and bug free.  I hate hairs that aren’t my own.  I despise them.  I pray for no hairs.)

So the next obvious question is, what is the itinerary, KRISTI!  And for you, I give you this – our itinerary:

First stop Zurich!!  Well, just to fly into.  For some reason, you can get flights for less miles into Zurich, so being little cheapies, that is our flight destination.  From there, we will quickly hop in a train and head to:

SIENA! Where we will watch horse races!  When I did my study abroad summer in Italy, we were constantly told about the amazing horse races of Siena, only to then be told, “too bad you won’t be around when they happen.”  Well, Horse Race Teasers!  I will be around this year!  Around and exhausted, but still physically there.  So take that!  After celebrating our horse’s win, Blake and I will spend 3 more days hanging around Florence and Tuscany in general before hopping in a super long train to:

MUNICH! Home of beer and pretzels.  My memories of Munich from my previous 2 days spent in the area involved a lot of beer (which at the time was like, half a pint….what a light weight!) and a crazy man trying to sell David some weird version of Monopoly (owner of Mike’s Bikes Munich, I am looking at you).  This time around, I would still like to experience the beer, while also viewing all these castles I keep reading about.  And then I will move into one and live in a fairy tale.  But one with a happy ending.  None of that Hans Christian Anderson business.  After eating our fill of pretzels we are heading on a shorter, but still pretty long train to:

BERLIN! This will be my first time in Berlin.  I plan to see some sort of wall there.  Maybe throw in some all night discothèque.  Of course, we will also be visiting some sobering Nazi sights to add some gravity to our travels.  After depressing ourselves in Berlin we will be hopping on ANOTHER long train to:

PARIS! For Bastille Day!  Which, according to those in the know (Mike again), is one heck of a fun time.  We will be in Paris for much longer than all the other places, because there is just so much to see there.  I really (really) really wanted to take a cooking class in Paris, because seriously, I am a dork like that, but then I looked some up and learned about the price of 160 euros.  Which, wow.  That’s a lot of money.  So no cooking class for me, but there are still one million other things to do.  Like wear a beret and smoke cigarettes (Not me!  Gross!).  After eating baguettes and drinking copious amounts of wine, we will hop on a short little train and head to:

NICE! Which is supposed to be beautiful and crowded!  This is an expensive area, so Blake and I are staying for 2 nights in a hostel run by some New Zealanders.  According to HostelWorld.com, this hostel was voted the best hostel in Europe 2009.  That better be true.  Last time I trusted the reviews of place overwhelmingly labeled “FUN!” I ended up in a pit called The Funny Farm in Interlaken, Switzerland.  We will see just what people consider “Fun!” in Nice.  I am hoping it means clean, hair free beds.  After sunburning ourselves on the French Riveria we will hop on a small train to just across the way to:

CINQUE TERRE! Where we will hike our little tails off while admiring the view.  This is another area I fell in love with while studying abroad, and I hope to eat some gelato and eat some non-oil covered seafood after a long day of hiking and sunbathing from the shade (no sunburns for me!).  After sleeping for many, many hours, we will hop on our last train to:

ROME! My memories of Rome weren’t that great from my previous visit, but you can’t deny that there is a TON to see in the city of Rome.  I plan to wave to the pope, fight some lions in the Coliseum, before eating some spaghetti and drinking some wine.  After fighting our way through the heat and crowds of Rome, we are making our final long train ride to:

ZURICH! Where we will spend the day rejoicing at the cleanliness of the Swiss and staying in the only nice hotel of the journey, before boarding our flight back to the good USA.

Does anybody have any advice or must see destinations for us???  Let me know!